Hey fellow harpers...allow me to BLOW my own horn ( or harp ), concerning the classic Slim Harpo song, "Baby, Scratch My Back".
i LOVE doing this song, and it always meets with VERY positive audience review, as it did again yesterday. Something I learned tho, that having a decent guitarist holding that swampy groove is more than essential to pulling it off.
"Burning James" Scoolis did just that, with his brand new Victoria amp Deluxe clone 20112. Great job. laid the foundation for the rather simple, but definitive, harp riffs. My miced up Blackheart sounded absolutely incredible. THAT warm...just loud enuff fuzzy distortion. Totally Slim Harpo in tone. On stage also was funky saxophone ace Scott Andrews, who commented afterwards, " WOW, I learned a new song ! ".
Needless to say, I really hammed it up. The song lends itself to this ad-libbing, and I did plenty ( even commenting about the attire of various sweet thangs in the audience and incorporating into the lyrics. OK, some not so sweet, but they need luvin' too ).
Anyone else here do this song, or other Slim Harpo on a reg basis ?
Love Scratch My Back and yeah, the guitar is essential in terms of tone and groove. Gotta add as well that this tune requires a lot of tongue block technique for tone (Tone!).
I bought a copy of the "Best of Slim Harpo" in June (after going to a show by Rockin' Jake), and have been working my way through basically every song on the album. I'm loving this stuff. The tunes and grooves are super-catchy, and the harp playing is simple enough for me to wrap my head around, but still quite challenging, especially with respect to the subtleties.
I'm having lots of fun with "Buzzin'" in particular (which has some amazing drum work); and "Blues Hangover" and "Snoopin' Around" seem like great ways to acclimatize to 3rd position. And, of course, there are those wonderful tongue slaps to work on.
The songs all seem to be really well orchestrated and produced, except that some of them fade out right as they are starting to get good--presumably to fit better into radio slots. "Blues Hangover," for example, cuts off right at the beginning of the harp solo that the song seems to have been building up to.
Anyway, yeah--should I ever start playing gigs, some Slim Harpo will definitely be in the repertoire.
Oh yes, LJS, this is a must...and goes over well in Slim's home state(this one)where enough folks always know he's from here. This one and Tee Ni Nee Ni Nu are both fun.
I like to put my mic down and play thru the vocal mic for this one, and have fun with cupping wahs and other hand effects...I even put aside my personal disdain for line dancing(probably because I'm too uncoordinated to do it myself), as the steady beat lends itself well to this. ----------
Crescent City Harmonica Club Todd L Greene, Co-Founder
I love Slim Harpo and one of my favorite tunes of his is an instrumental called "Tip On In." The T-Birds did a cover of it that was good, but not remotely as good as the original Slim Harpo and the opening guitar part heavy on the tremelo is a signature part of the tune, and in many ways, some of the sound he was doing when he was recording for Excello.
The drumming on Frank Frost's "My Back Scratcher," when it was made in the mid 60's, seemed to be a precursor for the disco drum sound that came about in the 70's. The guy playing harp on it, Little Arthur Williams, I believe, may have possibly been blowing harp thru a Leslie. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Aug 24, 2010 1:28 PM
Man, Seeing Gary Primich again in his prime....not a youngster, but looking healthier than when I last saw him. The guy had talent. What a shame that he went down so far.
Slim Harpo is surprisingly (to me anyway) left off many lists of blues harp masters but his recordings are all there musically and as a result they're eminently listenable:
I've done this song many times and used the Thunderbirds version as the test bed. Gotta say I never noticed the tongue block thing until now. I'll use it in future.
Slim Harpo is the funk a delic, fat back, stuck in the mud, burning pocket man. PS my e-mail name came from my brother who was helping me sign up for email many years ago. I wanted something like Blues man or something like that. They were all taken. He said well, you are slim and you play the harp -- Bingo.
